I'm just throwing this idea out for discussion because I'm not sure which direction to go with it.

Within Shadowrun a literal interpertation of John 6:53 "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you" sounds sort of like health care instructions for vampires.

While the "Son of Man" is usually interperated to mean Jesus and he is referenced as such elsewhere it is not much of a stretch to assume that the usage of the phrase here refers to mortal humans in general when taken out of context.

Likwise, John 6:56 "he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him" sounds a lot like the act of a vampire giving his blood to vampiric pawns.

This leads to one and only one possible conclusion: Jesus was a vampire. It is true that he rarely exibits vampiric tendancies in th ebible, but one must remember that this was written long after his crucifixion by several different authors with their own agendas. It is quite possible that they deliberatly burried material that waould confirm Jesus's vampirism to serve their own interests.

Vampire Jesus could make a good adversary in various high power campaigns, particulary one centered around a team of Catholic exorcists/vampire hunters. The obvious blasphemy may turn off some but could be fun for others others, especially when interwoven with a literalist take on other mythology as filtered through the lens of the Sixth World.


Sinc the idea is potentially epic and potentially silly and potentially everything in between in every combination depending on how it is presented I'm having some trouble coming up with a good way to present Vampire Jesus as a Shadowrun antagonist. What would his goals be and what has he been doing for the past two-thousand years? Does he have any relations with vampire groups canon and noncanon? Does his have followers and pawns? Is he a suave player or a feral killing machine? The answrs to these questions seem to ellude me.

I would very much like some imput and discussion on the idea and hope that this stirs some imaginations.

I always suspected that hippy of being a bloodsucker...

Well .... the character of Jesus doesn't support that ... it doesn't mean that you can't have a heretic vampire with a David Koresh symdrome trying to twist the bible to lure and create a cult. This would make a large following from which he could draw from.

Uses magic to perform miracles... heals his little following ... etc etc etc

I think you may have this a bit backwards...Jesus doesn't resemble a vampire so much as modern neo-gothic vampirism is modeled after Christianity. I know of no cultural vampire myths that involve the vampire giving it's blood to minions, and I'm quite certain that the Dracula of Bram Stoker's novel doesn't do so either (please correct me if I'm wrong). However, modern vampire myth, heavily influenced by Anne Rice (who now, oddly enough, writes novels about Jesus) and White Wolf roleplaying games, deliberately references Christianity.

So, unless you're retconning Jesus (your choice, I guess), this isn't really much more historically resonant than saying that Jesus was a Great Western Dragon.

A lot of those dietary derivations from scripture sound more Wendigo to me than Vampire. Didn't an important Druid in one of the older SR Novels end up being a wendigo?

Hehe, reading this reminds me of the Romans and how they reacted when Christianity started spreading. They were weirded out by the whole eating flesh and drinking the blood too. Hmmm... that would be a nice twist, that the big J was actually soething like a wendigo. And then there's the whole thing of what the Church will do, cover it up? Imprison the one who's supposedly the big J? oh the questions.

huh. and here, i always thought Jesus was a zombie. you learn something new every day!

Did you ever play the Sensible Erection Role Playing Game? (serpg.com)

In that you eventually have to kill the pope. Having the Big J as an adverserial NPC is just one step farther.

an interesting theory. Ever since I was old enough to understand the littany, I thought it was ritual cannibalism. you can tell I had trouble with the Church pretty much from the start.

It's sort of counter to the Davinci code. heck it could even be a whole novel unto itself. I would though be VERY careful who you tried this on. It would be very easy for people to take offense at this.

I´d side with JonathanC, however, if you like to play this (or the imposter version) you might draw in the priorei de zion, which are rumored to "guard the bloodline" of christ. The Ordo Maximus (Threats 1, and, I guess, the Novel Project Terminus, as well as Black Madona, in passing) from SR canon has some link to these.

I think the imposter rout has more oportunities and is allso less likely to upset somebody. Still, you dont have to tell the players if it was an imposter or not, just let them decide for themselfs. The roman catholic church will quiet likely assume it´s an imposter. Since "In Imago Dei" magic has no more to do with a real wonder, then firearms or trauma-patches.

haha, wow. that'd be great. the Merovingians were actually a cabal of vampires.

Close Enough

Yes, I saw this movie. It's so fucking B-Movie hilarious, you have no idea. Seriously.

that movie is the king of all movies. and, in light of the revelation about which this thread has been created, it's even more awesome. i mean, the concept of a vampire who fights other vampires is a classic of pulp fiction. this takes it one step further: it's a vampire who fights other vampires, and is also Our Lord and Savior, the Christ.

i'd also like to note that one of the other movies by the same director is noted for having "a fresh approach to banana jokes". ...what the hell!?

The novel The Last Days of Christ the Vampire by J. G. Eccarius is written pretty much along those lines. Haven't read it but several people over on a mailing list I frequent said good things about it. Think there was also a related comic floating about at one point as well.

Just to reply to an earlier post (can't remember who said it now, and not so bothered I have to check )... there are references to Dracula sharing his blood with his minions in the Stoker novel. Renfield is given some of the vampire's blood, which causes/increases the inmate's fascination with eating insects, spiders, etc., and renders him a useful servant to the fiend (it's also why, in Nancy Collins' Sonja Blue novels, a vampire's retainers are referred to as 'Renfields'). He also forces Mina Harker to drink of his blood, and makes her one of his brood. In fact, it's because of this link between the two of them that Jonathan and Van Helsing are able to track Dracula's movements back to his homeland.

As to the whole Jesus/vampire thing... meh. I think the current impostor has more relevance in an SR setting than the 'true origins' of christianity. Creating a cult based around the corrupted teachings of an established religion always has the scary ring of truth about it, anyway (been done too many times in history to be dismissed as stupid or unbelievable).

jonthecelt

You could also look at the Australian aboriginees whose initiation trials really DO include drinking blood. Boys going through the initiation are required to literally drink the blood of their elders (after having just been circumcised with a flint knife), and in fact may be required to live off of the liquid blood and carefully cut wafers of dried blood for up to a month.